The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power gets its sea legs in “Adar”

There was an awful lot to mull over after last week’s two-part premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, but it’s got nothing on this week’s episode. While the first two installments of the show had lots of groundwork to lay in terms of introducing us to this new prequel series, now that all that introductory stuff has been done, “Adar” takes the setup and runs with it. The result is an excellent step forward for the series that feels much more solid than its setup-heavy opening act.

As always, there will be SPOILERS for this week’s episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power below.

Welcome to Númenor

The lion’s share of this 70-minute episode is devoted to Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Halbrand’s (Charlie Vickers) journey to Númenor, the island nation ruled by a long-lived race of Men from whom Aragorn is descended. Númenor is basically the equivalent of Atlantis in Tolkien’s mythos, an advanced civilization with thematic undertones revolving around human hubris. It’s never before been depicted onscreen despite being a pretty core part of the lore, especially of the Second Age.

So The Rings of Power had to get big Númenor right, and I’m happy to report that the show is off to an excellent start. Once again, the absolutely stunning visuals are on full display as Galadriel and Halbrand are escorted to the island city by none other than Elendil (Lloyd Owen), an ancient ancestor of Aragorn’s. The city itself is breathtaking, as are the landscapes around it. The ship’s approach to the harbor is magnificent, with enormous statues lining forested mountains, ornate bridges, and shining buildings. All of it is underscored by music with a slightly Middle Eastern flair, giving Númenor a distinctly different feel than any other location we’ve seen thus far.

But sweeping visuals alone do not a good story make. Thankfully, the plot developments on Númenor are compelling; we learn of the historical divide between Númenoreans and Elves, we meet Elendil and his children Isildur (Maxim Baldry) and Eärien (Ema Horvath), and follow Galadriel as she collects more information about the threat facing the Southlands. A lot happens during the Númenor segments, which feels welcome after the slow burn of the previous two episodes.

There are some great character moments in here as well; a particular highlight is Galadriel and Elendil’s horseback ride out to the hall of lore, which is shot in slow motion. It’s a little weird, but seeing the ever-serious Galadriel get this moment of freedom and happiness is wonderful. Lloyd Owen kills it as Elendil; he exudes an air of command that makes him riveting to watch. His character only gets more interesting when we saw interacting with his children, who bring out different sides of his personality.

Halbrand: King-in-exile or dark lord waiting in the wings?

All that said, I’m conflicted about Halbrand. Throughout this episode, I kept coming back to the thought that he might be Sauron in disguise. As Tolkien lays out in The Silmarillion, in the Second Age the dark lord takes on a beautiful form known as Annatar, the Lord of Gifts. Obviously Halbrand doesn’t quite fit that bill, but there are enough moments where he turns on his charms that it made me wonder. Add in his alleyway fight where he brutalizes four Númenoreans who try to gang up on him, and the case for Halbrand having a dark streak starts to look pretty good.

By the end of the episode, however, we learn that he is in fact a king of the Southlands in exile, who is running from his own dark lineage owing to the fact that his ancestors fought for Morgoth. The whole thing recalls Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings in a bit of an obvious, obnoxious way. We’ll see where the show takes things, but for now I’m skeptical.

However, the biggest thing to happen in Númenor is that Galadriel and Elendil piece together the meaning of Sauron’s dark sigil. It turns out that it’s not a symbol for the dark lord at all, but rather a map meant to resemble the mountain range of the Southlands with a mark to depict the location of a tower. This place is marked to become a land where evil may thrive, and while it may be called the Southlands in The Rings of Power, it’s easily recognizable by another name to viewers: Mordor. In this Age, it’s still a verdant land populated by humans. But we know that won’t last.

Dark times in the Southlands

So The Rings of Power will show us how Mordor came to be the dark place it is by the time of The Lord of the Rings. The orcs are actively terraforming the land there by capturing humans and Elves and forcing them to dig tunnels so Sauron’s forces can move around despite their weakness to sunlight.

After getting snatched by orcs at the end of the previous episode, Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) is taken to a prison camp where he’s forced to work on digging those tunnels. In addition to human villagers, the orcs have also captured the rest of Arondir’s Elven comrades.

A fight breaks out when the orcs order the Elves to chop down a tree and they refuse. It’s tense, although the death of Arondir’s friend felt like it pulled its punch a little bit visually. On the one hand, this is a show that is designed to be accessible for family viewing, so I can understand that choice. On the other, there are way more graphic things throughout the rest of the episode, such as when the warg (which has a terrifying face) mauls prisoners or Halbrand shatters a Númenorean’s forearm.

Then of course there’s the big break at the end of the episode, where all the Elves work together to try and make a run for it. That sequence was easily the best action scene of the series to date; the effects with the chains were just cool. That said, the escape attempt is a failure, as Arondir’s commander is peppered with arrows mere moments after he finally escapes.

The episode closes with the orcs ominously chanting for the Adar (which is Sindarin Elvish for “father”), as a shadowy figure approaches the re-captured Arondir. That Adar fellow looks an awful lot like another Elf to me. Color me intrigued.

Leave no Harfoot behind

“Adar” made the good choice to streamline things a bit, leaving characters like Elrond (Robert Aramayo), Durin IV (Owain Arthur), and Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi) for next week. But we did get to spend more time with the Harfoots. If Númenor was sweepingly epic and the Southlands ominously dark, the Harfoot parts of the episode were grounded and down to earth. The nomadic predecessors to Hobbits are about to start their next migration, and everyone is worried that Nori Brandyfoot’s (Markella Kavenagh) father won’t be able to make it with his injured ankle. If you can’t keep up with the caravan, you get left behind.

The premise bugged me just a little; as compassionate and tight-knit a community as these Harfoots are, they have a pretty strict code when it comes to keeping up with the pack. But the show sold the emotion of it really well, with a pre-migration ceremony that honored those who were left behind in previous journeys.

After it’s revealed that Nori has been helping the Stranger (Daniel Weyman), her family is bumped back to the rear of the caravan. But the Stranger helps pull their cart to keep them from getting left behind. It’s the least he can do after accidentally outing himself to the Harfoot community at large. I was a little surprised the whole falling-from-the-sky thing wasn’t discussed a bit more, but this plotline was there to give us some extra feels this episode, and it succeeded. By the end, we’ve basically learned nothing new about the Stranger, but at least now the rest of the Harfoots know about him and he’s added another word or two to his limited vocabulary. How long will it be before he can just tell us what his deal is? Stay tuned.

The Bullet Points of Power

• Elendil tells Galadriel that the hall of lore was built by Elros, who is Elrond’s brother. For some reason, I found the mural of Elrond and Elros in the hall to be kind of hilarious; it really does look just like Elrond!
• Arondir killing an orc with a piece of a tree root made me cheer. That whole plotline where he volunteers to chop down the tree, knowing what that means for an Elf, was very cool. Death by tree-root was a pretty good bit of karma for the orcs.
• Speaking of the orcs, they were a smidge less scary this episode than in the previous one. Still very effective, but these felt much more like the orcs from the Peter Jackson films than the borderline horror movie creature we saw last week.
• We also met Queen Regent Miriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) and Pharazon (Trystan Gravelle), the two nobles who seem to be running Númenor. Both actors did a solid job introducing their characters. Very excited to see more of them.
• There was quite a bit of talk about Miriel’s father. She goes to him near the end of the episode to tell him that Galadriel has arrived in the city, a dark portent they were watching out for.
• Númenor as a whole felt a bit more conflicted than I expected. In The Silmarillion, the Second Age spans thousands of years. In that time, we see Númenor go from a golden civilization to one corrupted. The Rings of Power appears to be starting somewhere in the middle of that process, with dissent already fomenting and some citizens having a terrible distrust of outsiders. Elendil mentioned that the true king of Númenor was forced off the throne but remains on the island. Presumably we’ll learn more about that in the episodes to come.

Verdict

“Adar” was my favorite episode of The Rings of Power yet. It honed in on a few of its leads and fleshed them out, had great action scenes, and really nailed the introduction of Númenor and some of its major players. It still has some spots I’m uncertain about, such as Halbrand’s destiny, but overall it went a long way toward making the show feel more grounded and certain in its approach. Add to it the reveal that the orcs are building Mordor and the intrigue about the Adar cliffhanger, and you have a recipe for a pretty compelling episode of television.

Episode Grade: A-

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